Almost end of 2017

29Dec

I have been here in Sydney, Australia for almost 7 months. Time flies and now the year 2017 will end soon, year 2018 is awaiting.

For some months here in Sydney, these what surprise me most:

Sydney has winter in June to August, by contrast, Sydney has summer in December. That makes my Christmas no longer white Christmas.. but Hot Christmas instead. Christmas here is still merry, merrier than the one I used to have to. I like it when they have Christmas display, songs in shopping malls. Love Christmas always..

Still about Christmas, here in Sydney, Christmas trees are everywhere. Not only in malls, but you can find them, at the street corner, at big squares, or wherever there is a park, there will be a Christmas tree, at different range from small to big size. Even more, there are Christmas lighting on streets and houses. Some streets have their houses decorated for Christmas. People can donate money, since the decoration is privately managed by the house owner.

There are so many Chinese, Indonesian and Iranian in Sydney. Overall, Sydney is a diverse and multi-culture city. But since Chinese and Indonesian are so many, especially in Kingsford, there are so many Asian restaurants, from Chinese, Korean, Thai, to Indonesian restaurants. I don’t have any difficulties to find Indonesian food (nasi padang, martabak, bakso, pempek, indomie), but the price is of course more expensive than the one you can have in Indonesia. For example, one portion of Nasi Padang is AUD 11, though the portion is big enough for me, enough for twice of eating.

Sydney has so manyyyyyy beaches.. I mean really really a lot of nice beaches. Along the eastern Suburbs of Sydney there are Bondi Beach, Bronte Beach, Tamarama Beach, Coogee Beach, Malabar Beach, Maroubra Beach, Little Bay, Congwong Beach. There are also Watson Bay, Parsley Bay, Rose Bay, between eastern Sydney and North Sydney. At Northern Sydney, there are Manly Beach, Shelly Beach, Mona Vale, Dee Why Beach, Avalon Beach, Whale Beach, and Palm Beach. There are still many small beaches which I can’t mention, and the good thing is, I can just go to those beaches within short time. The closest one would probably Coogee Beach, only 15 mins away from my home. Love loveeee those beaches, and I am so happy to live surrounded by beaches. They are so clean and have white sand beach (well almost all). I always collected small shells from every beach I visited (also from Indonesian beaches), just to hope that they would bring me back to the place.

Sydney has traffic jam during peak hours (when people go to and back from office or after school). The light rail to Eastern Suburbs are now under construction, and hopefully by 2020 it will have operated. The mode of transportation in Sydney are varies: Bus, Ferry, Light Rail, and Train, but Sydney doesn’t have MRT like UBahn in Germany or Singapore MRT.

Sydneysiders like other Australian, like to shorten many words.. and when they say it’s fine.. it will be “no worries”..”Hi how are you” are common when people greet you. And here you will just call your lecturer by name, only name, no title Professor, Mr., Sir. Etc.

Sydney has up and down terrain like a hilly area. It is not flat or low land. That’s why my university has lower campus and upper campus, cause one is down below, and other part is reachable by stairs… lots of stairs..haha right now I get used to it. At first, it was very tiring and took me lots of time to reach the edge of upper campus from the lower campus. Now, in 10-15 minutes I can reach the tip. My campus is famous for “a thousand stairs campus” lol.

I guessed those are 7 things I can mention now about Sydney. I am planning to spend my New Year’s eve watching the biggest fireworks event and see how they light the Sydney Harbourbridge and Opera House.

I wish 2018 will go smoothly as well.. and lots of travel 😊. I wish everybody will achieve their dreams.